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Could Woodbury save one-room school? First selectman explores possible move of old building BY RICK HARRISON REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WOODBURY -- As area children prepare to go back to school, Marty Ludorf's family want their school to go back to the people.

As of this month, Ludorf's mother's property on Transylvania Road has gone into bankruptcy, leaving in doubt the fate of a one-room schoolhouse that last served children of Woodbury and Southbury 96 years ago. But First Selectman William J. Butterly Jr. has begun to explore the possibility of marshaling private resources to move the structure to town land, possibly on the slope alongside the Senior and Community Center parking lot.

"I think it would be good for school kids," Butterly said. "I don't know if we'd have to spend anything if it was a volunteer effort. We have the land."

Butterly recalled how in 1990 in Watertown, members of the Lions Oldsfellow group and UNICO restored and relocated the Nova Scotia schoolhouse to behind the Munson House on DeForest Street.

But he noted that he had only just begun thinking about the possibility of helping to organize a similar effort in Woodbury after Ludorf's mother, Esther Ludorf, called him about two weeks ago. The family has owned the structure since 1927, purchased from a man whose daughter taught there. Butterly plans to meet with Marty Ludorf on Wednesday.

"If it can't be done, it can't be done," Butterly said.

Preserved one-room schoolhouses in Woodbury include the District 2 Schoolhouse on Main Street South, owned and maintained by the historical society; a Hotchkissville schoolhouse that now serves as a guest cottage; and one used as a garage behind Canfield Corner Pharmacy.

Ludorf remained a mixture of cautiously optimistic and realistically skeptical after having sought buyers for both the land and just the schoolhouse for much of the past year before accepting that his mother's reverse mortgage made a sale economically unfeasible.

"You won't believe what I've done," Ludorf said. "I've been to Rotary meetings. Been to every Realtor in the area."

He hoped the town's support could help convince the mortgage company to give away the schoolhouse, which he said had little monetary value compared to the land. And while he recognized that the building, erected sometime before 1875, needs structural reinforcement to survive a move, he believed its small size and weight and an accessible underside makes a relocation possible.

"It's right at a point if you get a group of halfway intelligent guys or women, the building is definitely save-able and definitely moveable," Ludorf said.

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